Human-computer interaction in ubiquitous computing environments

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore characteristics of human-computer interaction when the human body and its movements become input for interaction and interface control in pervasive computing settings.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper quantifies the performance of human movement based on Fitt's Law and discusses some of the human factors and technical considerations that arise in trying to use human body movements as an input medium.

Findings – The paper finds that new interaction technologies utilising human movements may provide more flexible, naturalistic interfaces and support the ubiquitous or pervasive computing paradigm.

Practical implications – In pervasive computing environments the challenge is to create intuitive and user-friendly interfaces. Application domains that may utilize human body movements as input are surveyed here and the paper addresses issues such as culture, privacy, security and ethics raised by movement of a user's body-based interaction styles.

Originality/value – The paper describes the utilization of human body movements as input for interaction and interface control in pervasive computing settings.

An Intelligent Human-Computer Interaction System for Decision Support

This paper proposes a novel architecture for
developing decision support systems. Unlike conventional decision support systems, the proposed architecture endeavors to reveal the decision-making process such that humans' subjectivity can be
incorporated into a computerized system and, at the same time, to
preserve the capability of the computerized system in processing information objectively. A number of techniques used in developing the decision support system are elaborated to make the decisionmarking
process transparent. These include procedures for high dimensional data visualization, pattern classification, prediction, and evolutionary computational search. An artificial data set is first
employed to compare the proposed approach with other methods. A simulated handwritten data set and a real data set on liver disease diagnosis are then employed to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed
approach. The results are analyzed and discussed. The potentials of the proposed architecture as a useful decision support system are demonstrated.

A new perspective on competency management: Implemented through effective human-computer interaction

Making an informed decision on whether an individual is suited to undertake an educational course or industry training programme can be very frustrating. When dealing with young adults at different cognitive skill levels, it is important to be able to identify and distinguish between their knowledge/competency levels, mostly on the basis of the evidence gathered from test-items. The current absence of appropriate measurement tools to determine skill/competency/knowledge levels remains a practical issue. The main aim of this paper is to discuss the management of this important differentiation in cognitive skill performance. One of the dilemmas surrounding this type of competency evaluation is the time it takes to test an individual. Insisting for instance, that a novice undergoes a long and arduous test, including many difficult testing items, results in lowered self-esteem, reduced motivation for learning something new, may induce stress related disorders. Similarly, expecting a more competent individual to undergo numerous simple test-items can generate the same negative result. A Competency Management System (CMS) is presented to initiate effective human-computer interaction (HCI) for cognitive skills assessment. © 2009 Springer-Verlag US.

Fingertips detection for human interaction system

Fingertips of human hand play an important role in hand-based interaction with computers. Identification of fingertips' positions in hand images is vital for developing a human computer interaction system. This paper proposes a novel method for detecting fingertips of a hand image analyzing the concept of the geometrical structural information of fingers. The research is divided into three parts: First, hand image is segmented for detecting hand, Second, invariant features (curvature zero-crossing points) are extracted from the boundary of the hand, Third, fingertips are detected. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is promising.

Feature nodes : an interaction construct for sharing initiative in design exploration

Exploration with formal design systems comprises an iterative process of specifying problems, finding plausible and alternative solutions, judging the validity of solutions relative to problems and reformulating problems and solutions. Recent advances in formal generative design have developed the mathematics and algorithms to describe and perform conceptual design tasks. However, design remains a human enterprise: formalisms are part of a larger equation comprising human computer interaction. To support the user in designing with formal systems, shared representations that interleave initiative of the designer and the design formalism are necessary. The problem of devising representational structures in which initiative is sometimes taken by the designer and sometimes by a computer in working on a shared design task is reported in this paper. To address this problem, the requirements, representation and
implementation of a shared interaction construct, the feature node, is
described. The feature node facilitates the sharing of initiative in formulating and reformulating problems, generating solutions, making
choices and navigating the history of exploration.

Stability of television viewing and electronic game/computer use in a prospective cohort study of Australian children: relationship with body mass index

Background
While much cross-sectional data is available, there have been few longitudinal investigations of patterns of electronic media use in children. Further, the possibility of a bi-directional relationship between electronic media use and body mass index in children has not been considered. This study aimed to describe longitudinal patterns of television viewing and electronic game/computer use, and investigate relationships with body mass index (BMI).
Methods
This prospective cohort study was conducted in elementary schools in Victoria, Australia. 1278 children aged 5–10 years at baseline and 8–13 years at follow-up had their BMI calculated, from measured height and weight, and transformed to z-scores based on US 2000 growth data. Weight status (non-overweight, overweight and obese) was based on international BMI cut-off points. Weekly television viewing and electronic game/computer use were reported by parents, these were summed to generate total weekly screen time. Children were classified as meeting electronic media use guidelines if their total screen time was ≤14 hrs/wk.
Results
Electronic media use increased over the course of the study; 40% met guidelines at baseline but only 18% three years later. Television viewing and electronic game/computer use tracked moderately and total screen time was positively associated with adiposity cross-sectionally. While weaker relationships with adiposity were observed longitudinally, baseline z-BMI and weight status were positively associated with follow-up screen time and baseline screen time was positively associated with z-BMI and weight status at follow-up. Children who did not meet guidelines at baseline had significantly higher z-BMI and were more likely to be classified as overweight/obese at follow-up.

Conclusion
Electronic media use in Australian elementary school children is high, increases with age and tracks over time. There appears to be a bi-directional association suggesting that interventions targeting reductions in either screen time or adiposity may have a positive effect on both screen time and adiposity.

Multimedia authoring : human-computer partnership for harvesting metadata from the right sources

This chapter takes a look at the task of creating multimedia authoring tools for the amateur media creator, and the problems unique to the undertaking. It argues that a deep understanding of both the media creation process, together with insight into the precise nature of the relative strengths of computers and users, given the domain of application, is needed before this gap can be bridged by software technology. These issues are further demonstrated within the context of a novel media collection environment, including a real- world example of an occasion filmed in order to automatically create two movies of distinctly different styles. The authors hope that such tools will enable amateur videographers to produce technically polished and aesthetically effective media, regardless of their level of expertise.

UGI: a multi-dimensional ultrasonic-based interaction approach

We are currently witnessing an era where interaction with computers is no longer limited to conventional methods (i.e. keyboard and mouse). Human Computer Interaction (HCI) as a progressive field of research, has opened up alternatives to the traditional interaction techniques. Embedded Infrared (IR) sensors, Accelerometers and RGBD cameras have become common inputs for devices to recognize gestures and body movements. These sensors are vision based and as a result the devices that incorporate them will be reliant on presence of light. Ultrasonic sensors on the other hand do not suffer this limitation as they utilize properties of sound waves. These sensors however, have been mainly used for distance detection and not with HCI devices. This paper presents our approach in developing a multi-dimensional interaction input method and tool Ultrasonic Gesture-based Interaction (UGI) that utilizes ultrasonic sensors. We demonstrate how these sensors can detect object movements and recognize gestures. We present our approach in building the device and demonstrate sample interactions with it. We have also conducted a user study to evaluate our tool and its distance and micro gesture detection accuracy. This paper reports these results and outlines our future work in the area.

Graphical authentication : an architectural design specification

Graphical authentication is proposed as an alternative to password, smartcard, and biometric authentication as it uses the innate ability of humans to recognise visual stimuli. Despite passionate debate surrounding their privacy and invasiveness issues, smartcards and biometrics require an excessive amount of extra hardware for widespread deployment. Conversely graphical authentication extends existing infrastructure as it builds largely on the foundations of passwords with one important difference: it takes humans into account as they are better at recognising visual stimuli than recalling text-based passwords. This paper follows a preceding proof of concept paper and essentially outlines the architectural and technical design for a graphical authentication solution.

Graphical authentication: justifications and objectives

Password authentication has failed to address the compounding business requirement for increased security. Biometric authentication is beginning to address the need for tighter security, but it costs several orders of magnitude more than basic password implementations. Biometric authentication also possesses several shortcomings that inhibit its widespread adoption. In this paper we describe the trends in the literature before presenting the justifications and objectives for graphical authentication: a viable alternative to both biometrics and passwords. We also intend the paper to serve as a
prelude to forthcoming implementation and validation research.

Learning from facial aging patterns for automatic age estimation

Age Specific Human-Computer Interaction (ASHCI) has vast potential applications in daily life. However, automatic age estimation technique is still underdeveloped. One of the main reasons is that the aging effects on human faces present several unique characteristics which make age estimation a challenging task that requires non-standard classification approaches. According to the speciality of the facial aging effects, this paper proposes the AGES (AGing pattErn Sub-space) method for automatic age estimation. The basic idea is to model the aging pattern, which is defined as a sequence of personal aging face images, by learning a representative subspace. The proper aging pattern for an unseen face image is then determined by the projection in the subspace that can best reconstruct the face image, while the position of the face image in that aging pattern will indicate its age. The AGES method has shown encouraging performance in the comparative experiments either as an age estimator or as an age range estimator.

Understanding the ontological requirements for collaborative web-based experiential learning

The challenge of human-computer interaction forces educationalists to think of new ways to understand the social, historical and contextual nature of learning. Discussion and exchange of ideas enable learners to learn together. However, the granularity of the Webbased learning context is extensive; consequently, e- Courseware design faces new dilemmas. Only through targeted research will it be known with any certainty whether Web-based learning gives rise to a new type of learning dissonance [1]. It has been proposed that converged theoretical paradigms that underpin particular digitised or context-mediated learning systems are forcing learners into new ways of thinking [2]. This paper presents an overview of the plans for an experimental project designed to understand the ontological requirements for experiential instructional environments. This project is a joint research initiative involving three Universities in the Asia/Pacific region. Results will be used to inform educationalists interested in developing instructional strategies for a global community.

An investigation into the usability of graphical authentication using AuthentiGraph

There is increasing coverage in the literature relating to the different facets surrounding the security service of authentication, but there is a need for further research into the usability of graphical authentication. Specifically, the usability and viability of graphical authentication techniques for providing increased security needs to be further explored. There is a significant amount of evidence relating to traditional authentication techniques which highlight the fact that as technological advances grip modern societies, the requirement for more advanced authentication and security approaches increases. The exponential growth in the number of people using the Internet carries with it the high potential for increased security threats, suggesting that there are needs for further techniques to increase security in online environments. This paper presents the findings of how various interface design approaches affect the usability of a previously developed alternative graphical authentication technique called AuthentiGraph. The security design provided by Authentigraph has been established and justified in previous research by the authors. The primary focus of this paper is the usability of this technique. Using an experimental laboratory based approach, combined with an online survey, 20 university students evaluated a combination of five varying graphical interfaces in three different screen sizes. The outcome provides the interface design criteria best suited for the implementation and use of the AuthentiGraph technique.